


Two roses and a song

by Kit



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types
Genre: Dragon Age Reverse Big Bang 2015, Epistolary, F/F, Isabela does not mind., Josephine is a cardshark, Raiders of the Waking Sea, and sisters being sisters, any acid is too much acid, dashing rescues, epistolary snark, much kissing, pirates being pirates, silliness about hats
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-13
Updated: 2015-12-13
Packaged: 2018-05-06 10:22:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,011
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5413202
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kit/pseuds/Kit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Josephine writes excellent letters. Isabela does not. A story in two parts.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Part one - 9.42 Dragon

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the delightful [bloomingcnidarians]()

 

 

**_To: the Admiral, Felicisima Armada: Rialto Bay, Antiva._ **

**_From: Josephine Cherette Montilyet, Ambassador to the Inquisition, Skyhold._ **

**_9.42 Dragon_ **

> **Your Grace,**
> 
> You are cordially invited to Skyhold to celebrate the defeat of Corypheus, former Magister of the Imperium. The Inquisitor and other mutual acquaintances have only the highest regard for your services rendered over the past year.
> 
> Please advise of any requirements you may have, in order to best enjoy the occasion.
> 
> Yours faithfully
> 
> J. C. M.

 

[two notes are attached to the official letter]

 

> **Rivaini**
> 
> Come see what grew on the mountain. Looks a bit like a cult. Tastes a bit like a cult. Feels...well. Not so sure about that, even after a year. But the evil overlord is pretty damn dead and we’ve all worked for it. Some beer and adulation is overdue.
> 
> Plus, I could use your eye on this I’m writing. Weird shit, but what isn’t these days? I’ll be leaving pretty soon after you. Too much stabbing and too many trees. And sand. And mud. And, well. Outside. Daisy’s letters are sounding sad, too, and seeing repairs to Kirkwall laid out on a big map isn’t the same thing as being there. Did you ever go back?
> 
> Doesn’t matter. Tell me when you get here. I’ll be your exit if you’ll be mine.

 

> **Cher Isabela,**
> 
> Z sends his regards. With interest. He said to phrase it exactly so, should we ever meet. Your assistance in the Free Marches was, as you yourself said, I recall, invaluable.
> 
> It will be good to see you. You are, I think, one of the few people who saw the Warden for who she truly was, even if it was only for a particularly crowded hour.
> 
> Do not be alarmed if this note disintegrates. It has been specially treated. Your fingers should not burn. Hopefully.
> 
> Nightingale.

****

****

> **_To: Josephine Montilyet_ **
> 
> **_From: Isabela. JUST Isabela, honestly._ **
> 
> First off. _Your grace?_ Seriously? I’m a little charmed and definitely laughing. I think your salutation was longer than the letter. I do like that handwriting: No one can tell if you can spell or not through all those loops.
> 
> Second, though it should properly be first, I suppose: It’ll be lovely to see you and this inquisitor-type. Always good to put faces to the people who owe me favours.
> 
> That sounds a bit ruder than it’s meant to, I think. I’m useless at letters. And your coin was always good. Interesting jobs, too.
> 
> I’ll be there.
> 
>  
> 
> Isabela
> 
>  
> 
> P.S. ‘Any requirements’? ~~Twelve strapping dancers and Rialto brandy.~~ That’s a leading question, lady ambassador. Wouldn’t want you to uninvite me. Is that a word?
> 
> P.P.S. Leliana, if you’re reading this: too much acid. Any acid is too much acid.

 

* * *

 

 Josephine knows how to read a party. Her mother’s voice is easy to call up even in crowded spaces far from the sea, memories of her child-self peering down at gatherings she’d been too young to attend.

Find a gap here, the memory says, and Josephine listens. Track a social swirl and find its centre—there! _Can you see the cause, darling_? Food served at the wrong time. The right sort of wine. Politics mixing poorly with music too slow for passionate thought. Too much gold in the draperies.

“Stop fretting, Josie.”

Leliana catches her up in a quick hug from behind, the old affection as strange, after the year they’ve had, as the new lightness in her voice.

“When,” Josephine asks, straightening her skirts and wincing as Sera sticks out her tongue at them both from across the hall, a glass in each hand. “Has that _ever_ made anyone stop worrying?”

Leliana chuckles, breath making the small hairs prick up on the back of Josephine’s neck. “It’s better than letting you combust over _petit-fours._ Everyone is happy. You could serve them soup made from stones with wyvern’s blood to drink, and they’d still thank you for it.”

“That’s not a point,” Josephine says, shaking her head as her friend pulls away and dimples at her.

Josephine knows there is more than Corypheus death in that smile. She does not ask. Leliana enjoys keeping secrets as much as sharing them.

“Rivaini.”

Varric’s voice. Whispers and a broken glass. A chandelier dropping light like water as a grand, feathered had nearly knocked from its holding.

There are twenty guests from Rivain in attendance today. Josephine does not need to look to know this one.

She looks anyway. Colours catch at her: heart’s blood leather; Feathers that she _knew_ her mother would price atthree silver a piece if even if you shot the bird yourself. Weathered brown skin and paler scars. A slip of leg in a swirl of blue coat.

Josephine starts when Isabela blows a kiss to the room, laughing her shock as Leliana mimes to catch it, her own glass raised high.

“Flirt,” she manages.

The light chainmail Leliana wears even here settles in a series of soft, dull chimes as she shrugs. “I’m out of practice, I’m afraid,” she says. “But it is _fun_ , no?”

Josephine moves, the crowd parting and reforming as she extricates the Navarran ambassador from a potential situation with an Antivan envoy and a soup tureen. Isabela’s voice is still clear, Varric a comfortable rumble beneath it that makes the anger and weariness of the past few months stand out, almost sharp enough to make her wince.

 _I hope you make it home soon,_ she thinks, watching as the dwarf catches at Isabela’s hands and keep hold as they talk. _I think you need it more than most of us._

This is not the time to think of Antiva city. Lights on the harbor and salt cutting through thicker, stronger air than anything she knew in Skyhold’s heights.

“Is this meant to be a party?” Isabela asks, bringing Josephine back to the room. Music trips in a rapid six-count, and Josephine smiles at the musicians, because people forget about musicians at events such as this, and slights are worse when they are unremarkable.

Varric is shaking his head, Isabela’s voice a rapid match for the music. “Didn’t you go save the world five minutes ago?” she asks. “Where’s the dancing? Where’s the fighting? Where’s the _sex?_ ”

Josephine winces, watching wide-eyed as The Iron Bull chooses this moment to lean down, hand falling to Varric’s shoulder. Josephine can see the red linen of his shirt crumple under the weight. The dark red and golds of the fabric show through the space made by Bull’s missing fingers.

“I like this one,” he says, with a low chuckle. Josephine accepts the small flip in her stomach. No helping it, and no harm either.

“You know,” Isabela drawls, “I think you’re the only Qunari who’s ever said that to me.”

Bull is grinning. “The Iron Bull,” he says, nodding and releasing Varric as the Inquisitor draws close enough for him to tuck her under his arm. “And that is a _fantastic_ hat.”

A theatrical sigh. Behind her, the Anitvan envoy tries to catch Josephine’s arm. “Soon, my lord,” she says, half an ear still on Isabela’s response, the pirate’s easy stance still half clear in the corner of her eye.

“You’re **_not_** the first person to tell me that, sweet thing,” Isabela says, smirking. “Especially at your angle.”

“Wasn’t a euphemism.” Bull shrugs. “Though your tits are great, too.”

Josephine has to fight a groan. “Do please excuse me,” she murmurs, breaking away from the envoy. “I’m afraid I’m needed.”

* * *

Isabela laughs.

The air is stupid, here. Thin and too cold and higher than it has any right to be. Varric’s smile is right, but there is something worn and wrong about the eyes that says he’s missing home. He held her hands for long enough she was half sure she felt his pulse come up through the skin of her palms, and Varric isn’t one for touching, most days.

The past year, she thinks, probably hasn’t been made of _most days._

Great food. The Inquisitor’s a good sort for someone who has people in uniform all around the room. The eye of the inquisition is stitched into clothing and pressed into walls and it’s all a bit creepy, really, but the woman in front of her keeps looking at the finery as if she’s trying to decide which part to burn first, and remembers the names of first mates met only through snatched notes tied to Leliana’s ravens.

A good start, maybe. With an end that makes sense.

She also seems to be staring as much as the Iron Bull, which is gratifying. She laughs.

“Are you _flustered_ , Lady Inquisitor?”

“Your Grace.” A new voice, light and calm, though there’s something slightly panicky about the eyes the stranger steps among them in a swirl of gold and indigo that says more about Antivan dyers than 30 books. “You made it.”

_Your Grace._

She has to laugh. Hard enough that her face aches and she has to press her hands into her thighs, raucous and as graceful as a landed seal. When she looks up, the other woman regards her with dark eyes, eyebrows slightly raised.

“I’m sorry,” Isabela chokes. “It’s just—”

“—the proper title for an Admiral.”

She lifts her chin, and Isabela appreciates the tiny smile tucked into the woman’s mouth.

“Josephine,” she says. “You have to be.”

“That’s…most decided of you,” Josephine says.

“You write like you speak.”

Another raised eyebrow. “Impenetrably?” she murmurs. “I believe that’s how you described it. ‘Ornate and impenetrable.’”

“I probably just said _loopy_.”

The ambassador’s nose crinkles, Isabela realizes, when she is trying not to smile.

“Dance with me,” she says, the impulse easy in her mouth. “There should be more dancing. This is how things like this work, isn’t it? Dances. Under-the-table-deals, over-the-table-sex…or is that just my imagination getting away from me?”

She is rewarded by a faint flush. “Perhaps,” Josephine says. “At times.” Even blushing, she keeps her gaze steady, brows slightly knit. She reaches out, gathering up Isabela’s hands in her own, and the pirate finds herself staring, delighted, when Josephine draws them up to her lips.

* * *

_Have fun, Josie._

Leliana’s voice has joined all the others trying to give advice, but it’s distant. Josephine lets herself be swept into the small, cleared space for dancing, her small triumph over the surprise on Isabela’s open, lovely face warming her even as the enterprising music master changes the tempo of the new piece to something slower than is good for anyone’s sanity.

Isabela’s hands are warm. The vivid blue coat is plush under Josephine’s fingertips, light at shoulder and wrist. She lets the other woman lead for a few steps, just to test her skill with this form and measure, but she finds herself pressing forward, shifting and guiding until _she_ leads the pair, Isabela chuckling into her shoulder.

“You’re full of surprises,” she says. “Why do I have the honour?”

_Because I wanted to._

That thought does not do. “You were making a scene,” Josephine says, trying for crisp. “I intervened. Force of habit.”

More laughter, magelight and candlelight intermixed and spilling from the chandeliers in jewelled droplets that seem to melt into Isabela’s necklace and earrings, into her own clothing.

“Perhaps,” Josephine says, “I wanted to see if _you_ were like your own writing.”

“And?”

“You are…quite yourself, my lady.”

“Your grace,” Isabela says. “Now _my lady?_ I like this. I think, I mostly want to know how you can see all this silliness with a straight face.

“Easily,” Josephine says, ignoring the small voice appalled at herself for even mild teasing. “If it looked like I was laughing at someone, my mother would whack my hand with a fan. Standard practice.”

“I’ll take your word for it,” Isabela laughs, breathless from a quick turn. “And plenty of ladies here are pirates, sweet thing. I’m just honest about it.”

They have started a trend. Couples tread the floor, while Cullen stands in the centre of an ever-tightening circle of admirers. She catches drifts of, “—but _other_ people are dancing, Ser…” and winces for the man even as she fights even more laughter. She feels her throat work. Wonders if the small glass she’d taken earlier has changed by some strange bodily alchemy that Dagna might understand, so the bubbles from the drink are now pressing beneath her skin.

Isabela’s eyes are bright. “You know,” she says. “I believe you are _terribly_ unappreciated, Josephine.”

Why she should be so aware of each of Isabela’s fingers on her body, even through cloth, Josephine does not know. It is infuriating. _Imagine Yvette in this situation_

Her sister, Josephine realizes with more than a little horror, would be half melted. She sniffs. “That is a strange idea from five minutes acquaintance,” she says, and if her voice wavers she can blame the dance—the broad, warm crescendo of string and voice as the music flares and settles back into safety.

“I have _plenty_ of ideas,” Isabela says. “Are you a betting woman?”

* * *

They wait until the party winds down. The game is played over one of the cleared dining tables.

Cards have patterns just as parties do, and the people who hold them, in Josephine’s experience, are much easier to read.

Bull risks more than he win; Varric creates elaborate forfeits until his words begin to slur from sleep more than drink. Cole tells ghost stories.

(”They’re my advantage,” he says, delighted. “Risk and right, lulling and loud.”

His stories tend to come ending first. “So everyone knows they’re just stories,” he says, earnest, when Isabela points this out. “They might be frightening, otherwise. Scary isn’t the same as frightening. Scary can be warm. Right risk. Reverent. The unknown opening wide and wilful and _will this go the way I want_?” He sighs, smile crooked and eyes unfocused. “Fear-fright isn’t the same at all.”)

The Inquisitor goes to bed early, three terrible hands leaving her convinced of terminal ill luck, Cassandra and Dorian at her heels. Vivienne, haughty until the Inquisitor pleaded that she join the group, then relaxing into delighted competition, win more than she risks. When she leaves, she is smiling and satisfied, a moonstone pendant of Trevelyan’s glinting in her palm.

Cullen, poor man, refuses a bet.

“Sore loser?” Isabela teases, groaning at his hectic blush.

“It is a long story,” Josephine says. “The last game was…more complicated than the Commander expected. Are you in?”

Isabela loses her hands with as much delight as she wins them, pilling the centre of the table with coins and—as the shadows lengthen and the two of them are left facing each other over glitter and empty glasses—her shirt.

Josephine closes her eyes.

“Oh.” Exasperated reproach. “Don’t be like that. I have nothing else to _give_ , sweet thing.”

Her breathing is shallow. She opens her eyes, too aware of the muscles in her throat, the tightening of skin across her chest. Sweat at the back of her neck. Isabela watches her, shoulders back and that fine blue coat in a heap at her feet, her shirt puddling over her hands as she shrugs, dropping to the floor without a sound.

“Two serpents,” Josephine says. “And four songs.”

The hand is good, but Isabela’s is better. The pirate groans as Josephine adds a coin to the pile. “I’ll never catch up,” she declares, leaning forward and grinning as Josephine’s eye is drawn down the curve of throat and shoulder and breast. “And now you’re just letting me win. That’s just sad.”

Half a laugh. “How do know?”

“You’re much better than me,” she says. “But I _still_ cheat, sweet thing. Still have eyes.” She picks up her whiskey glass and tilts it toward the candlelight, the liquid shifting to match its warmth. “Make me lose again, Josephine.”

“I’m—I do not—this is—”

Her words tangle and trail off. There is too much air in too little space. Isabela is flushed, pleased and coaxing, her had still shadowing her face even as she sits half naked before the woman. It should be ridiculous, Josephine thinks. It _is_ , truly, quite ridiculous. The evening was meant to end three hours ago. She should be writing. She should be sleeping.

Cards have patterns just as parties do. Josephine reaches across the table and plucks one rose from the pirate’s hand, the old card supple and smooth-edged in her fingers. She does not need to check its face.

Isabela’s laugh spills over them both, and Josephine treasures the small, surprised noise she makes when she to her feet, stolen card still in her hand, and leans over the pirate’s chair to kiss her. 

* * *

Ink and incense and gentle hands at her throat, the taste of whiskey in her mouth slowly licked away.

Isabela presses up into the kiss, chair rocking back and nearly spilling them both as she twists and catches at the other woman’s waist, tugging her into her lap. Josephine’s skirts are split. She settles easily— _straddles_ easily—and isn’t that a lovely image? Something the ambassador will blush over later, Isabela thinks. Hopes.

Teeth close lightly over her lower lip. Careful fingers leave her throat. Sketch the side of her face. Tilts them to a better fit.

“Are you always this demanding?” she gasps. “I _like_ it.”

“I can’t think what you mean,” Josephine manages, words slipped out between smaller kisses, her hands now firm on Isabela’s back, skin warming to match her own. “ _You’re_ the one who—”

“—can lose very handily when this is the result.” She smiles when Josephine’s dark head rests against her shoulder, body pressed easily into hers. Isabela lets her fingers dance. Finds pins in the other woman’s hair to pull free until it’s a tumbled, half-coiled mess about her head.

“I trust,” Josephine murmurs, a tiny smile of her own gracing her blushing face, “This stands in for twelve strapping dancers and rialto brandy.”

Isabela splutters.

“I have a very good memory,” Josephine says, smile broadening, one hand slipping up between them to cup Isabela’s breast. “It has, for example, been more than eight years since I last attempted anything of this sort.”

“I’m easy to please,” Isabela drawls, though here’s a catch in it as touch sparks and Josephine’s eyes never leave hers, wide and with pupils blown.

“That does not mean I will not in an effort,” she says.

Isabela shudders. 

* * *

Josephine leaves Isabela with a small kiss to her wrist, eyes heavy and wonder coiled up tight where worry usually lives. No one stops her on way to her rooms. If the other guests are awake, she cannot see them. No servants cross her path.

 _Leliana_ , she thinks, _might have eyes_. Josephine laughs to her herself, one hand pressed tight over her swollen mouth, as she pictures waving to her friend, hair loose and skirts returned to only half their usual order.

The world was saved, this week. She has worked hard to believe it, but now, echoes of touch still playing over Josephine’s skin, it finally feels true.

 

_End of part one_

 


	2. Part two - 9.46 Dragon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The world is tiny, and made of mirrors. Isabela laughs, raw and loud. “Josephine?” she says, the ache of new bruises still sweet as her heartbeat refuses to slow down. “The woman I remember wasn’t the murdering type. Except at cards.”

 

> **_To: My dearest. My love. My sweetest sailor, F._ **
> 
> **_From: Your Yvette. 9.46 Dragon, Antiva City._ **
> 
>  
> 
> I’ll come to you, if you wait for me. You’ve won me over. We shall be marvellous. Mama will only be cross a little while, if she sees how happy we are together. She married papa out of love, after all, and she was richer before her marriage. Everyone says so. And who cannot love a pirate in Antiva? No one with a soul.
> 
> Wait for me, and I’ll come.
> 
>  

* * *

 

_She’s late._

The silver at Yvette’s wrists and throat catches the lamplight and twists it.

She stares at her hands and lets herself be dazzled, Her eyes are hot and full of grit. Someone sobs. The back swings dreadfully: back and forth and banging on people going out to be sick.

_I am going to be sick._

Yvette is not at waiting. She knows that. But an hour is a long time, in this place. Even for patient people. Her mother would not wait an hour. Josephine would wait five, but only if she’d planned it out beforehand. Her brothers wouldn’t wait five minutes.

The hour churns in Yvette’s gut.

If she does not blink, her captain will come. She swore she would. They will be married, and the world will change. The inn will grow warmer, she thinks, pressing a hand to her mouth. The grime will into something more romantic as Felicia, Captain of _Maferath’s Rage_ for the Raiders of the Eastern Sea, sweeps in with a rose and a laughing apology tripping out of her mouth, gathering Yvette into a kiss with strong arms easy about her waist.

When one is being kissed, Yvette thinks, it doesn’t matter if your feet stick to the floor.

She should have brought a sketchbook. She could fill hours that way. She could catch the people all about her—the old man who mutters to himself; the barwoman who laughed as Yvette ordered wine instead of whiskey, and gave her something Yvette is _sure_ could be used to set dyes into cloth.

Felicia will kiss her hands and see that Yvette is wearing her silver, and it will all be a marvellous story, and—

— _Brasca._

Yvette stands. The door is not far away. Five steps? Fifteen? The bracelets skitter down her arms as she moves, jaw tight at the tiny sucking sounds her shoes make as she walks.

It is vile. The evening was meant to be lovely, her hopes met, her heart filled. But in _such_ a place, an hour is too long.

 _I shall prepare myself to forgive her_ , Yvette declares inwardly, lifting her chin. _So long as is kind._

A woman brushes past her, brass buttons gleaming in the small oil lamp hangs in the doorway. Her hat almost knocked it from its place. She straightens it, and Yvette stares as she smiles. Who could help it? The jewel under the woman’s full lower lip casts its own small shadow. She is wearing black opals at her wrist and throat, tumbled about with Rivaini gold pieces. Her nails are cracked and her hat is wide and red, with more opals in the band. Her arms are bare, scars cut by dagger sheathes, and a bright scarf is knotted at her throat.

Yvette swallows.

“Too much?” the stranger asks, a dimple showing, fingers moving to set the hat at a more rakish angle. “No such thing.”

Yvette looks away, then back. “I’m-I’m sorry?”

“Why waste time on _sorry,_ sweetness?” she laughs, ridiculous hat slipping back from her face, and Yvette finds it is easy to smile back, fears sneaking away into the far corners of the room, far away from her again, even as the older woman winks at her, moving with slow grace toward the dreadful bar.

Yvette steps out into the night.

 

* * *

 

 _Pretty thing_ , Isabela thinks, as Mazia pours her drink and old Ser Ennis raises his hand in a quavering salute. It always feels good to dazzle. Antiva is hard to impress, and used to her besides. She wonders briefly at the pinched, hectic look on the girl’s face, then sighs, shaking her head at her own silliness. She _meddles_ , these days. Too much time spent with Hawke. Too many years spent doing good while growing old. It’s embarrassing.

When she hears the scream, she’s on her feet without thought.

Five steps. Two knives. The muscles in her legs strain as she moves, the tavern noise fading at her back as she sees the noble girl spitting in appalled outrage as one woman pins her to the wall and another strips her jewellery with a quick hand. Isabela knows the work, and a part of her is surprised to see Felicia so far from her ship.

“You are a _true_ little idiot,” the captain says, and the girl kicks at her, tries to buck and scratch even as tears run down her face.

“Quiet,” Felicia snaps. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

A sodden laugh. “You _tricked me_ , _”_ she manages. Her silver glitters, heavy and forlorn. “This was meant be a dowry, you—you—”

“—Pirate.” Felcia shakes her head. “And you made everything so easy it was almost _boring_.”

Isabela has had enough. She throws.

“No, _sailor,_ ” she says, clear and lilting as the others turn big, foolish eyes on her. “That’s you.”

She throws.

Blood and spit and scratching. Felicia moves well even with a dagger in her shoulder—there’s reason, Isabela supposes, that she made captain. She kicks out at Isabela, tears the hat from her head, feathers and gems scattering and a smirk on her face.

The black eye Isablela takes is worth the surprise on the other woman’s face as she shakes it off and reaches for the third dagger at her thigh.

When it’s done, and the three assailants are hogtied at her feet, Isabela turns to her surprise rescue.

“Who are you, when you’re at home?”

“Yvette,” she says. “I—you were—this is—you _saved_ —”

“It’s an old and boring habit I keep trying to lose,” Isabela mutters. “Go on, sweet thing.”

“House Montilyet,” Yvette says, groaning, voice almost throbbing with embarrassment and relief. “And if I don’t die of shame, my sister is going to _kill me_.”

The world is tiny, and made of mirrors. Isabela laughs, raw and loud. “Josephine?” she says, the ache of new bruises still sweet as her heartbeat refuses to slow down. “The woman I remember wasn’t the murdering type. Except at cards.”

Yvette actually squeaks. “You know my sister?”

“I know a lot of people,” Isabela says. Her shrug has too many clicks in it. “Could always know them better.”

 

* * *

 

 

> **_To the scion of the household, eldest and most serious: Josephine Cherette Montilyet_ **
> 
> I don’t get in the way of anybody’s bodies. But I _do_ know how to string liars up by all their breakable bits, and your sister isn’t going to hear from Captain Felicia ever again. She’s back to sailor. Long way down, on a trireme.
> 
> Some thanks would be nice. I’ve heard wordsabout you. So’ve the shipwrights. I have a fleet to maintain, and will be in Antiva for a while. A girl needs money for hats.
> 
> It was good to see you. Wasn’t expecting that. Some memories are better left untouched once all the touching’s done, but outrage suits you, and you were so surprised.
> 
> Played any Wicked Grace lately?
> 
> Isabela.

 

 

* * *

 

 

> **_To Josephine Montilyet, from Yvette Montilyet: Antiva City. Delivered by Antoine, because I cannot stop crying and you simply must not see me. Not like this. You’ll only scold_**. 
> 
> Sister, I am dying.
> 
> Yours ever
> 
> Y
> 
>  

> **_Yvette,_ **
> 
> You are not going to die. Things shall be resolved, and your days will grow very full as the Mortalitasi delegation pays its visit to the princes. Father believes a situation shall help, and so do I.
> 
> Your sister.
> 
> PS. Do come down to dinner. Cook has arranged your favorites.
> 
> PPS. I shall not scold, but if you do not come down within a timely period, I shall drag you by your ear.

 

* * *

 

 

> **Admiral Isabela,**
> 
> You have my thanks, your Grace, and the address of a new hat shop across the bay that you may not have heard of yet. The milliner is Orlesian, and likes to work by referral. Say my name at the door, and you shall be seen to.
> 
> You shall not have my shipyards, as I’m sure you knew when you asked. No word in four years, and the first thing from you is a scandalous rescue and a demand for my family’s business. You paint a picture.
> 
> Yours, implacably, J. C. M.

 

 

> **Josephine.**
> 
> Don’t be like that. Words like implacable lead to word games, and I write terrible letters.
> 
> I’ve spoken to your steward. He takes well to being stalked in a dark alley. Nearly had my kidney. Well done, that man.
> 
> You have so much space, Josephine. So much harbour, and you’re barely using it. Oh, I knew about the Rivaini trade routes. And the Marcher line. Very good. Very reliable. But you could make much more if you worked with me. It would even be legal. Besides, you have Smilers from the House of Repose guarding your door. That shows you’re not afraid of serious money. Are you afraid of me, instead?
> 
> I

 

 

> **Isabela,**
> 
> Now you’re simply being provoking. How long are you in Antiva?

 

 

> **The dear, most provoked Lady J:**
> 
> Does it matter? Until I get bored. That could be two weeks. Could be a year. There’s always movement in this city. I love it more than I don’t, though our mutual friend Z is being very dull and absent these days. I wish Crows would give up on trying to kill him—they’ve got so much else to do! Two contracts on me in the last month. Low level stuff, poor beggars. I just helped one on his way to Nevarra. Twelve and spindly and obsessed with death, though not all that good at creating mine. He’ll fit right in. And the old bastards in the Crow tower don’t need every unwanted child.
> 
> I don’t know what’s gotten into me.
> 
> …No one interesting, that’s for sure.
> 
> Isabela.

 

 

> I am afraid, **Admiral** , that any commentary on your romantic life is beyond me. I have a house to run. The Inquisition was simpler. I do hope your small kindness, no matter how you begrudge it, bears good fruit for the boy. I adore my city, missed it with all of Yvette’s poetry in poorer form while I was at Skyhold, but the Crows are an too big a shadow, at times.
> 
> L would laugh at me, I think. She does more of that, these days. She is stepping away from the Inquisition. Something I did not think I would ever see. We are all blown to far corners, and the world feels as if it should be more changed than it is.
> 
> The point of this letter has gotten away from me. I suppose it is because we’ve now written for long enough that I can accept you actually do write back.
> 
> It is always a surprise.
> 
> J.C.M.

****

 

> **Josephine _,_**
> 
> I’ll have you know I put effort into these things. Almost as much effort as your steward takes at thwarting me. He’d make a fantastic pirate. The next time he blocks one of my ships from your harbor, I’m going to keep him. He’d be very useful.
> 
> Your hat shop, by the by, is divine. I know, it took me months, but it was worth it. You should see me. I’m serious. I’m a picture. Your sister would faint away at the sight of me. Your brothers would duels. I’d win, of course.
> 
> I hope you’re spluttering up her tea and shaking your head over me, sweet thing.
> 
> Isabela.

 

 

> ** Isabela! **
> 
> You cannot have Emil. He has been part of the Montilyet household since long before our fortunes grew enough to attract piratical interest. You’ll find he shall not be moved. Yvette is safe out of your reach—though safety at the Palace of Princesses is a distressingly relative term, I admit. She is much occupied, and Laurent is with her. Antoine is in Orlais. There shall no duels before year’s-end.
> 
> I do not drink tea while reading your letters. Brandy is better fortification.
> 
> J.C.M.

 

 

> Oh, **Josephine**. That’s never true. There are always duels around me. Even if they’re the messy, glorious, smack-your-heads-together-against-the-bar kind. Come meet me, and see. Bring that brandy with you.

 

> **You, Admiral** , are infuriating. And this is precisely what drew Yvette into trouble.
> 
> J.

 

 

> I don’t want to marry you, **sweet thing**. I just want your docks. Maybe a shipwright? The sight of you one of my decks, seeing the bright and messy world I’ve made yourself, and judging because of what you see, rather than what you assume. I don’t mind if you beat me, Josephine. You’ve done it handily before, and we both liked the results. Just…come and see me. I’ve seen you in your home. Find me in mine.
> 
> Make me lose again, Josephine. I dare you.
> 
> Isabela.
> 
>  

* * *

Josephine steps onto _The Siren’s Repeat_ with her head held high, ignoring Isabela’s slow smile as the taller woman reaches down to ease the last step on the ladder. Her new hat is sleek black, gold collected like liquid sunlight by the brim. She looks older. There are new scars at her throat and one shoulder, still puckered more bruise than shine. She is greying at the temples.

Josephine wonders if she could find a pattern within it, her slow ageing mapped out in her hair.

“Welcome,” Isabela says, crinkled eyes and a flash of teeth. “This is better than letters, isn’t it? So much less spelling.”

“I was growing quite fond of our correspondence,” Josephine said, pulling back and walking toward the ship’s far railing, careful over rope and keeping clear of working sailors. The sea stretched, bright in this light, the air thick with oil and salt. Wind rocks the vessel gently, tugging at Josephine’s hair along with her balance. Isabela keeps in easy step.

“I was losing,” Isabela says. “I wanted to change the game.”

Josephine shivers, and laughs at them both when Isabela fits an arm around her waist. “I thought you liked losing to me.”

Isabela turns Josephine into her body, light and sure. She cups the smaller woman’s face, feels the faint rasp of her palm against the softer skin. She can feel Josephine’s blush before she sees it.

“I have a present for you,” she says, words thicker than she expects in her mouth. She steps back. She has to look for the hat box, which wasn’t part of the plan. She meant to be suave. But that’s harder than it looks in a crowded harbour, with Josephine eying her with the same neutral expression Isabela suspects she has used to win wars.

“Here,” she says. “Open it. If you’re going to fight like a pirate, you should look the part.”

Josephine laughs into velvet and feathers, eyes wide.

“This is—”

“— _Gorgeous_ ,” Isabela says. “Wear it. I dare you.”

“Those aren’t trick words,” Josephine says. “You can’t just say ‘ _I dare_ ’ and expect me always to jump.”

“Not always,” Isabela agrees. “But everyone needs play, sometimes. You, more than most.”

“I should be insulted,” Josephine says.

“You’re not.”

“I…am not.” These words are spoken into the hat as she lifts it from its velvet and black lacquer. “ _Peacocks_?”

“If you’re going to make a display,” Isabela says, reaching out to take the object and settle it on Josephine. “Always make it a good one. You know that. I’ve been to your parties.”

Josephine eyes her, from under the brim adjusting to the new weight with minute shifts of her shoulders and spine. “I’m still not giving you my harbour,” she says.

“But you’ll have something to remember me by,” Isabela answers, bright. “You know, when I run out of patience and scarper off with an acrobat to Starkhaven.”

“Starkhaven?”

“Can always more bendy people.”

Josephine splutters, and Isabela brushes a feather out of her face. “I think I’ll keep writing to you,” she says. “Even from Starkhaven.”

She watches with interest as Josephine swallows, blush growing stronger. “What we do is hardly writing, I think. We’ve been passing notes.”

“Prickly ones,” Isabela nods. “I like it. No idea why.”

“I,” Josephine mutters, “Could say the same of you.”

“What, _prickly?”_

“Likeable,” she whispers, voice nearly lost under the creak of the deck. “And I hardly know why.”

“Well,” Isabela says, sweeping back and bowing with easy flourish. “I can give you a list.”

Josephine kisses her. The new hat, unsecured, falls at their feet. She reaches up and tugs Isabela’s free, laughing at the small, indignant sound the other woman makes against her mouth.

 

> * * *
> 
>   **Dear Isabela.**
> 
> Until next we meet.
> 
> The best of regards,
> 
> J. C. M.

 


End file.
